Dark matter clues in oldest stars

[tenbyfifty]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6993870.stm

[The Warthog]

It's not totally clear to me whether the earliest stars formed as stars in these long filamentary structures, or were actually long, filamentary stars rather than spheres...

[Cloudwatcher]

I'm left in the dark on this matter.....

[cygnusx1]

I'm left in the dark on this matter.....

ha ha ha

[tenbyfifty]

It's not totally clear to me whether the earliest stars formed as stars in these long filamentary structures, or were actually long, filamentary stars rather than spheres...

I think these paragraphs deal with that ambiguity:

"The filaments have a length about a quarter the size of the Milky Way and contain an amount of matter and gas about 10 million times the mass of the Sun, so that provides a lot of fuel for many stars."

Some of the stars that formed within the filaments would have had a relatively low mass, which is of interest to astronomers as they have a long lifespan and could still survive today.